BRATTLEBORO — The Blanche Moyse Chorale next month will perform an eclectic program of a cappella and accompanied choral works, under the title “Reflections on the Passage of Time.”
The concert will be performed Friday, April 13, at 7:30 p.m. at the Stone Church Center in Bellows Falls, and Sunday, April 15, at 4 p.m. at Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro.
The concert opens with three motets by the 17th-century German composer Johann Hermann Schein. Using texts from the Judaic scriptures, the Schein motets explore humans' sense of alienation from their god, the pain of passage from one generation to another, and the brevity of human life.
After these meditations, the audience will experience a significant passage of time, as the concert moves from the 17th to the 20th and 21st centuries with a variety of “modern” styles in the works of American composers Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, and Samuel Barber, the German composer Ernst Pepping, and the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.
All five composers draw their texts from Judaic and Christian scriptures.
Ives' “Psalm 90” revisits some of Schein's themes, but with a very different harmonic treatment. Copland's “In the Beginning” tells the Judaic story of the beginning of time in oratorio form, with Junko Watanabe as soprano soloist in this performance.
Barber, some 30 years after composing his familiar “Adagio for Strings,” transcribed that piece for mixed chorus as a setting for the 7th-century Christian hymn “Agnus Dei.”
Pepping has composed a beautiful setting of the popular excerpt from the Judaic book of Ecclesiastes: “To everything there is a season ...”
Pärt, the only representative of the 21st century, and still alive today, has contributed “Nunc Dimittis” and “Salve Regina” to the concert program. These two motets are certain to leave the listener “with a sense of timelessness,” according to a news release.
The Blanche Moyse Chorale, a program of the Brattleboro Music Center, is an auditioned chamber chorus of about 30 voices, drawn from the Brattleboro area and beyond.
Since 2007, director Mary Westbrook-Geha has brought to the Chorale not only her expertise in vocal technique but also her strong background in the music of Bach, having sung mezzo-soprano and contralto roles for many years at Boston's Emmanuel Church, the Marlboro Music Festival, and the New England Bach Festival.